1Not mine, people, I'm chinese not japanese.

Tsunade looked at the teacher across from her desk. The chuunin was quit obviously disturbed by her train of thought. Kudos. She had not even mentioned what her idea was just yet.

"I repeat, Iruka, what was Uchiha Sasuke like before the massacre?"

"He worshipped Itachi."

Tsunade's smile was that of a shark's. "Are you withholding information from your Hokage, chuunin?"

A stiffening in a back that had sent children out to be killers. "Hokage-sama, the boy has always been obsessed with his elder brother."

"Aside from his obsession?"

"Quiet. Hardworking. Stays out of trouble. Hokage-sama, whatever it is that you're planning, it will not end well."

"Iruka, you are a good teacher, but somethings-"

"If you are planning to use the jutsu I think you are, I can guarantee that it will make things worse."

"I doubt things can get worse than they are now. Oh, Iruka? Remember your place." she did not even bother to wave him away.

It was with grim brown eyes that he left.

Tsunade addressed the silent observer of the conversation. "Any objections from you Kakashi?"

"Konoha needs the Sharingan."

"It needs many things that the Uchiha once provided." a sigh. "Go, Kakashi, I don't want to see you again until you have finished your mission."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." Copy-nin Kakashi disappeared from sight.

Indeed, the famous son of the White Fang did not return for a long time. Two and a half years passed before he finally stepped foot on Konoha soil once more. An hour or two before his blond student would return from his journey with a certain perverted sanin, he stood before his mistress. He placed a black bundle on the ground, almost gently. Displaced cloth parted to reveal a naturally pale face of a slumbering child. At the age of eight, Uchiha Sasuke really did look quite cute.

"Why is he unconscious?" Tsunade asked sharply.

"Fugaku did a fine job teaching him to distrust strangers. Somehow he went through three closets worth of weapons before he ran out...that never happened when he was older, you don't think there was anything wrong with the jutsu do you?"

"Was there anything else that might indicate that?"

"He tried to roast me alive."

She waved the thought aside, "Uchiha rite of passage."

"Genin shouldn't have that amount of chakra, much less some kid who hasn't even graduated from the academy."

"All Uchiha with the fan on their back are capable of using the Katon."

"Will you wake him now?"

"When Iruka arrives. It would be easier if someone he knows is present."

Thus, Umi no Iruka found himself once again dealing with a eight year old Uchiha Sasuke. As he had thought, the boy did not care that his brother had killed his whole clan. As the boy's memory reached to about half a year before the massacre, Sasuke knew only what the three adults told him. Unfortunately, not having had to see the bloody events over and over for twenty- four hours seemed to have had made him more tolerant towards his brother's actions.

"I don't care!" children have a habit of not believing something if they themselves had not lived through it.

Iruka cursed, he had forgotten those big shimmering orbs of mass destruction the kid called eyes. "We know you love your brother Sasuke, we're not asking you to kill him. Don't worry."

Kakashi seemed to have gone into shock at the...rather obvious difference between this tyke and the angst-driven pre-teen he had come to call his protege. The child soon became silent, as his indignation on his brother's behalf subsided. Large doe eyes watched the adults. Iruka knew, if not for the strict disapproval that the boy feared from his father something akin to a petulant pout would have taken refuge on the boy's face. As it were, an impressively impassive face for one so young was present in its place.

Tsunade took a sip from a cup, Iruka was quite sure it was sake. "Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi will be your guardian from now on. He will also be your personal teacher."

"No."

"Are you disobeying my words, little one?"

"I am Uchiha. My brother is the clan head now that father is dead. Hatake-san isn't legally my guardian unless Itachi says so."

"He's a missing-nin, you do realize that right?"

"Then there is no Uchiha clan and I am just another orphan. I don't need a personal teacher."

Iruka smirked mentally, but coughed to gain the others' attentions. "Sasuke, do you really want to stay in the academy? Hatake-san can teach you things that are much more exciting, you won't have to pretend to be awake in the class anymore."

A blush and two sets of wide eyes conveyed that Iruka should not burst out in laughter. Sasuke bit his lip. "I do not sleep in class."

"Did I say you sleep in class?"

"You implied it, and for a ninja that's basically screaming it out for the world to hear."

"Glad you remember the lesson on word manipulation. Now, do you want to stay at the Academy and get easy grades or go with Hatake-san and work?"

The brat had such an adorable glare, Iruka could hear the other two dripping into puddles of goo. He was not surprised at Sasuke's reply. "Fine, I'll go with Hatake-san."

"Great!"

Kakashi really did sound happy. Iruka was sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Sasuke had him wrapped around his little finger. For a brief moment Iruka wondered if these two knew why tomatoes were so plentiful and cheap in the village even though they were imported from far away. He doubted it.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Half an hour later Kakashi was showing Sasuke around his apartment after taking a nice walk. The jounin had been surprised that the little tyke did not seem to care about the obvious gossip that revolved around him. The kid had just walked quietly as though the glares and fearful whispers were nothing.

Gotta love the conditioning the old families put their kids through.

"So, Sasuke, you hungry?" a nod.

"What would you like?" a shrug.

"Ramen?" yet another shrug.

"Ramen it is then."

Only, as they walked to the ramen stand the brat disappeared when Kakashi had glanced up at a tree to comment on a bird. It baffled the jounin that he had lost a kid who wasn't even qualified to be a genin. It also put him on high alert. There was a chance that Orochimaru might have spies who might have taken the kid back to him...which would be a lot worse than before considering that Sasuke was now essentially a blank slate.

"Hatake-san." Kakashi turned to see Iruka. Funny, he should have sensed the chuunin. Not to mention the brat that was standing beside him. The teacher looked irritated.

"Yo. Hey, Sasuke-kun. Where'd you run off to?" The damned kid blinked.

"Sasuke has a habit of disappearing off the radar, you should be more careful."

"We were going to get ramen." Kakashi's one eye peered at the stoic kid. "But if he runs again I guess we should head back."

"I didn't run. If you really are a jounin you should have known where I was."

"Really."

"Nii-san always knew where I was." was muttered beneath the boy's breath.

Iruka sighed and knelt down beside his former student. "Sasuke, be good for Hatake-san, alright?"

"Hai, Iruka-sensei." the chuunin nodded and walked away.

Kakashi looked down at the boy. "Why did you go off?"

"You're boring."

"Iruka-sensei told you to be good."

"He didn't say anything about being nice."

"Brat."

They eventually did arrive, only to meet the other two members of the former team seven. Two sets of wide eyes looked down at chibi-Sasuke.

"What the-umph!" Naruto's obscenities were cut short by Sakura's rather vicious palm.

"Uh, Kakashi-sensei...is that Sasuke?"

"Yup."

Naruto got free and his voiced...shock is too high a rating for so it shall not be typed. Instead, when he finally ran out of air, he was met with Sakura's fist. Maternal instincts come out at the oddest times.

Sasuke watched all this with a rather...detached air. Though, Iruka would tell one that the kid was hiding a glare. Wide blue eyes stared at him at disbelief.

"You're really Sasuke? As in Uchiha-Sasuke?"

"Baaaaaaaaaka." the kid was rather blunt.

"Why you little!" somehow Sasuke dodged the student of a sanin's lunge. Again. And again.

Kakashi was starting to wonder if the jutsu had failed and the kid had retained some of what had happened...but that would mean bd things. He wasn't supposed to be capable of anything beyond the exact date they had timed his back-tracking. Hell, he wasn't even supposed to know anything beyond that point even subconsciously. But...earlier when Iruka mentioned that the kid had a habit of disappearing off the radar he had not seemed surprised.

So, the legendary Copy-nin plucked the kid up by his rather odd scruff. "You're pretty good at that."

"So?"

"How does a kid like you manage something like that?"

"He's a baka."

"And?"

"And what?"

Kakashi should have known; with a brother like Itachi, the kid seemed impervious to all forms of glares. He sighed. He had messed up with Sasuke once already, so why did he have to try again? Why not Iruka? Sasuke never ran off to do something stupid while under Iruka's tutelage. Maybe he should ask the chuunin for the brat's reports while still in the academy. Then he noticed something. The kid seemed scared of Sakura.

"Sasuke-kun, you wouldn't happen to be scared of Sakura would you?"

The girl looked rather hurt at this, and even more so when she noticed the slight swaying from the boy trying to move away from her while being hung by his collar. The boy did not respond, he just persisted in trying to move away. It was amusing to see him actually succeeding in moving far enough away to end up hiding behind Kakashi instead. The older man had released the boy's collar sometime when the swaying had threatened to topple the two of them.

Naruto couldn't stop laughing, but he eventually was able to bring it down to the occasional snicker. He moved towards the younger Sasuke. "Hi, my name's Naruto."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. It looks like Naruto had actually grown up a bit. He had noticed the 'amnesia' in his former team mate. Sasuke. Looked at Naruto. And blinked. What? It's not like he could introduced himself, the weird old man had already told these two his name. Speaking of which, he hid himself some more when he caught the pink haired lady looking at him...she reminded him of one of his stalkers.

"You already know my name, baka." he muttered instead.

"Hmph. And here I was trying to be nice."

"...sorry." a blush. "I'm Uchiha Sasuke."

"Hehe. You like ramen, kid?"

"I'm not a kid." a cute scowl. "And yeah...Iruka-sensei drags me off to eat sometimes when he thinks I've trained too long." That got him a few stares.

"Iruka-sensei? Yeah, he's a nice guy, he treats me sometimes too."

"He's scary sometimes."

"Hell yeah."

"Naruto!" smack. Sakura didn't seem to like profanities in the presence in kids. Said kid hid behind Kakasi again.

The jounin wondered how his student could have ever been so skittish. "Why don't you get down, Sasuke-kun? You can't eat while on my back you know?"

Sasuke somehow jumped down without impaling himself on any of Kakashi's hidden weapons. Must have had a lot of practice with Itachi. Kakashi was starting to see why the kid had all but gone crazy after the Uchiha genius had left...he was also starting to see why Iruka thought this was a bad idea.

It was a sight to see how much tomato could exist in a bowl of ramen. It was also a sight to see Sasuke slurping. Sakura fainted. Naruto started to snigger. Kakashi realized that although the Sasuke that had become his protege may seemed to have been the new generation's version of him, he was actually quite different. Though, he wouldn't go as far as to say that Sasuke was like Obito. Wait, the kid had jumped in front of Naruto to save his life, hadn't he? Even though he had already started his journey as an avenger.

Kakashi was deeply disturbed, and hoped that no more of Obito's traits would show up in this kid. He didn't know what he would do if he had failed Obito twice. He sighed. Damn this kid, why did he make him sigh so much?

"You have got to be kidding me." Two of the four turned to see Shikamaru's shocked gaze.

Naruto grinned. "Hey, Shikamaru! Long time no see! You remember Sasuke, don't you?" he nudged said child.

"Uh yeah. Nice to meet you kid." honestly, he looked rather unnerved. Really unnerved. As he left, he seemed to be in a daze.

Iruka was having a cup of coffee in his living room when a thought crossed his mind.

"I wonder if I should have told Hatake about the explosive tags and wires..."

he smirked.

"Nah."